Hillary: The Controversy

Did you know that something historical happened on Sept. 9, 2009 in Washington D.C.?  It was not a parade of 400,000 Obama protesters. Nor the fact that another woman was added to the U.S. Supreme Court (its third woman ever).  Here’s a hint: the U.S. Supreme Court’s members usually start their new term each year on the first Tuesday of October.  The historic special court session on Sept. 9 was Part 2 of a March case concerning a federal law; which might have a direct impact in every presidential election cycle in the future.  If you knew the answer is “Hillary: The Movie,”  and if you knew (according to the Washington Post) the panel of judges were “deciding how the congressional intentions to curb the power of special interest groups can coexist with the First Amendment’s protection of free speech,” then you win five gold stars for being politically informed in North Dakota about an important national campaign issue.

In the form of Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission; your right to donate money to a group, organize within the group, and watch your funds create a political message was being challenged on Sept. 9 in the legal debate of whether “Hillary: The Movie” (partially financed with corporate funds) was correctly banned with a new law by the Federal Elections Commission: the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.  BCRA was used to block Citizens United from spending $1.2 million in advertising “Hillary: The Movie” for 10 seconds as a video-on-demand choice for every cable system across the nation.  Why?  Because the movie was planned for broadcast during the early 2008 primary season back when Democrats would be selecting their presidential candidate and since BCRA restricts on “any broadcast, cable or satellite communications that refers to a candidate for federal office within a certain time frame before an election.”

Did you watch CBS News on Sept. 6, 2009?  Did you hear the introduction, “Few people have heard of ‘Hillary: The Movie,’” until last year when the U.S. government banned the film and its ads from airing on TV. As Wyatt Andrews reports, much controversy is surrounding the film.  The CBS website shows the segment titled, “Hillary Movie Debacle.”
Debacle?  Just because Citizens United wanted to debate whether Hillary Clinton was qualified to be our next president and that this movie fell within the 30 day limit, the long arm of the federal government shoved a sock in the mouth of Citizens United on the cable television airwaves.  If you like or supported Hillary, you would say “Yippee, that movie should not have been shown.” But did you know that this same law did not impact whether “Hillary: The Movie” could be shown in theaters? (And it was) Did you know DVDs of the movie could still be sold at political gatherings? (Which is where I purchased my own DVD for $20 in Washington D.C. back in February 2008).

So why would you be interested in whether this movie was just an attack ad against Hillary Clinton or a documentary?  Why would the people of North Dakota care about whether this political movie could be seen on our own cable systems or not?  Consider this: the campaign laws also include TV ads referring to candidates running for federal office and (according to reporters at the court) the federal judges were discussing back in March 2009 whether BCRA also included the selling of books if the publisher was a corporation and whether a corporation has the same First Amendment rights as individuals.

From the Redstate website, July 28, 2009:  “Earlier this year, at the Supreme Court’s oral argument in the case of Citizen’s United vs Federal Election Commission, (with an underlined sentence) the government raised eyebrows by arguing that it believed that it can constitutionally ban the publication of books (if, as is always the case, the publisher is a corporation) that contain even one line arguing for the election or defeat of a candidate for federal office… based on the SC’s 1990 decision in Austin vs. Michigan Chamber of Commerce.”
According to the Washington Post, March 15, 2009 (quoting Theodore B. Olson, former Bush administration solicitor general who is representing Citizens United), “It seems to me the number one thing the First Amendment protects is communication about who we elect to run our government.”  His statement was followed by his opinion published on Sept. 7, 2009 in The Wall Street Journal, “In crafting McCain-Feingold, Congress acted without proof that such expenditures have any distorting effect on elections. And it responded to a nonproblem with a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel.  The current ban on candidate-related speech is not limited to big corporations or powerful unions. It prohibits election advocacy by all unions and all corporations, regardless of size.  It even criminalizes speech by nonprofit advocacy corporations such as Citizens United and the ACLU, which cannot conceivably distort or corrupt the political process…. The government claims the authority to suppress corporate and union speech not only in broadcast formats but also in books, pamphlets, and yard signs.  Put simply, the government’s theory is that because wealthy corporations and unions might speak too much during elections, all of them must be silenced.”
Censorship of books… in the United States?  Does that mean Susan Estrich’s book, “The Case for Hillary Clinton,” published in 2005 by Harper Collins should have to be taken off the library shelves or Michael Bowen’s book, “HILLARY!: How America’s First Woman President Won the White House,” published prior to January 2008?  Did the FEC want to stop these books from being sold at any bookstore during the 2007 and 2008 season?  If you supported Hillary Clinton and wanted to protect her from the power of the printed word, would you like to see books like R. Emmett Tyrrell’s “Madam Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House,” published in 2004 or Turk Regan’s book “The Hillary Clinton Voodoo Kit: Stick it to Her before She Sticks it to You,” or Edward Klein’s “The Truth About Hillary: What she knew, When she knew it, and How far She’ll go to become President,” published in 2005 or Amanda Carpenter’s book, “The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy’s Dossier on Hillary Clinton,” published in 2006 , and “The Extreme Makeover of Hillary (Rodham) Clinton” by Bay Buchanan off the shelves? A book by Carl Bernstein praising Hillary should be sold, but not a book discussing her flaws or her philosophy?

Citizens United president David N. Bossie replied how he decided to take his group into a new direction in spreading the conservative message. He was quoted (Washington Post March 15), “I took my motivation 100 percent from Michael Moore and Moore’s anti-Bush documentary ‘Fahrenheit 9/11.’” 

Ted Olson quoted in the same Washington Post artcle, the film is “best viewed as a rigorously researched critical biography” that presents interviews with journalists and former journalists.

On Sept. 12, the broadcast on C-span of the Federal Court on the “Hillary: The Movie” included these comments by Theodore Olson “...the inherent worth of speech of its capacity for informing the public does not depend on corporations, associations, unions, or individuals…. 27 states have no limits on either contributions or expenditures.  He stated to the judges, “The most fundamental right is to have a dialogue and have communication about political candidates… smothered freedom with complicated regulations and bureaucratic controls… the speaker is in peril, they could go to jail… it chills speech.” (You can listen to the entire case at http://www.c-span.org)

“Hillary” movie includes these comments:
*Michael Medved, “If she weren’t married to Bill Clinton, what is there that she has accomplished in her life that would lead you to believe that she should become the most powerful person in the country?”
*Larry Kudlow replies, “(It) brings back the idea of co-president.  Bill Clinton would be back in the White House.  When he left, the people had enough.”
*A 1934 radio interview with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt responding to the question, “When will there be a woman president?” She is quoted, “When a majority of American people have trust and confidence in the integrity of her.”
The movie also includes the famous Senator Hillary Clinton quote from the Senate floor, “I am sick and tired of being told we are unpatriotic if we speak against this administration.  We have a right to stand up and disagree with this or any administration.”

Presidential candidate John Edwards is quoted in regards to Hillary’s vote on the Iraq War, “She explains her vote moving from the primary mode to the general mode.  How about telling the truth mode?”  Edwards also says, “The presidency is not for sale.  The Lincoln Bedroom is not for rent.  Lobbyist money can no longer influence policy in the House or the Senate.”

The viewer goes back to the Jan. 24, 1975 bombing in Manhattan, New York by the FALN, (Puerto Rican Liberation group) where 4 people died and 50 were in the explosion.  You are reminded of their slogan: “Kill Capitalist and Imperialist Pigs.”  Fast forward to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate race. In Sept. 1999, her husband (the President) gave pardons to the FALN from the New York prison in spite of the Justice Department saying not to do this, don’t release them.  The movie asks the question, who benefited from this act?  And it includes how the U.S. Senate was so outraged by these pardons that the act was denounced by a 95 to 2 vote.
According to AP reporter Mark Sherman, “The Supreme Court signaled Wednesday it may let businesses and unions spend freely to help their favored candidates in time for next year’s elections.”  Sherman also quoted Chief Justice John Roberts, explaining why the court and not the Federal Election Commission should determine whether a federal campaign law is valid, “We don’t put our First Amendment right in the hands of FEC bureaucrats.”

So my questions are to you, the reader.  Should “Hillary: The Movie” be shown in downtown Fargo and would you pay $5 to see it? Or do you want others to be stopped from seeing it?  Also, do you think the Federal Election Commission was correct in blocking this movie from being broadcast by cable as “video-on-demand?”

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